There's certainly a gap in terms of personnel. For those of us who are tasked with doing the research, it's very challenging for us to do the effective research we're working on without that bridge to the producer. Where I come from in California, there is an extensive extension program that bridges from researcher to producer. The extensionist spends a lot of time just building trust with the producer and then becomes a conduit for that knowledge transfer, and in both directions, so that the researcher is prioritizing what's important for industry and the knowledge transfer for the research to the producer.
